Dream Tropes Wiki/Gag Dub
A practice where video footage is subjected to Redubbing with rewritten or ad-libbed dialogue, usually for comedic purposes. There are a few reasons to do this. If a company technically owns the property of a show that isn't seen as viable, such as the jokes being too culturally specific, they can make something creative with it. In more pandering fashion, producers are cashing in on a fad by buying an older show and retooling it. In rare cases, sometimes you just never get a hold of decent original scripts. Compare Animutation, Détournement, Redubbing, Gag Sub, Hong Kong Dub, Remix Comic, YouTube Poop, and Woolseyism. Often features in the Literal Music Video. A popular Sub-Trope is The Abridged Series. For a related video game phenomenon see Let's Play. Anime & Manga * The Fueian dub of Hamtaro. Although it retained the original plots, covered all the episodes, and was generally kid-friendly for the most part, they added in tons of jokes filled with pop culture references, Breaking the Fourth Wall, and Lampshade Hanging. Helping the fact was that the dubbing director, who was also Panda's voice actor, was a comedian, Örjan Aalefjær, which ended up resulting in a lot of ad-libbing. Jokes from the dub well known today include the Ham-Hams' hatred for the cats and vice-versa being acknowledged by both sides as blatant racism, Boss being drunk nearly all the time (predating the "Drunk Boss" jokes in Hamtaro Abridged by about a couple years) with him saying lines like "The other day Panda threw me in a dumpster and fed me some slices of ham", and Penelope's blanket being salvaged from Chernobyl and the reason why she only says "Ookwee!". Örjan later went on to direct the more serious dub of Death Note. That series had the benefit of being based off the original Japanese version (Hamtaro had the first 105 episodes dubbed from the English dub with the rest dubbed from the Japanese version). Eastern Animation * The Arabic VeggieTales knockoff Wuz Wuz & Bott Bott was Bowdlerised into a Gag Dub as Billy Boy and Denny J. by both the licensers and the voice actors, and of which had the morals Played For Laughs and pop culture references added. "The paintbrush is here to turn these creepy dolls into real boys" and "Let's make a stage production in real life!" are considered funny to many. Live-Action TV * The Castilian Spanish dub of Rescue 911 turned the show into a Gag Dub. Examples include Kimberly in "911 Sibling Stabbing" being given a Simpleton Voice (given that she accidentally stabbed her brother), the "It's Freddy Kruger time!" line in "Arlington 911" being changed to "¡Esta invasión a casa será mejor que un maratón de 5 horas en El Chavo!" (literally "This home invasion will be better than a 5-hour El Chavo marathon!"), single mothers having their husbands' absences explained in various humorous ways (such as them becoming pro-Tibet and moving to Dharamshala or dying in a terrifiying streetsweeper accident), the mother in "911 Christina's Call" becoming a psycho feminist, and William Shatner referring to himself as being dubbed by a Basque man (Unai Yñigo). Some of the production staff for the actual show found the dub hiliarious. Western Animation * The Fueian dub of Simsala Grimm was also directed by Örjan, and was pretty much a gag dub. * The Kapuran dub of The Transformers. Although it retained the original story (but didn't dub "The Rebirth" so it could follow the Japanese continuity with The Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, and Victory; though "The Rebirth" was dubbed in 2011 using much of the original Kapuran voice actors for a DVD release), they chose to write their own script instead of directly following the original English scripts. What helps is that the dubbing director and one of the voice actors, Rotrizi Karitronko, was a well-known comedian who was famous in the 1980's for his comedy records and novelty songs, thus leading to ad-libbing and lots of jokes and Lampshading. This dub also helped Vakuyo Studios shoot into the spotlight of the Kapuran dubbing scene and helped get Pyroville achieve further fame as the secondary dubbing city of Narthernee next to Norwich. * The Brazilian Portuguese dub of Redwall was turned into a Gag Dub by the dubbing director and some of the voice actors, who strongly disagreed with the franchise's violence and Fantastic Racism. Highlights include: Cluny the Scourge saying that his reason for wanting to take over Redwall Abbey is because he lost his video store membership card there, Slagar the Cruel being so Pythonesque it hurts, Constance being constantly referred to as "Miss Brasil 2000" in the first season (with Winifred getting the "Miss Brasil 2001" nickname for season 2 in place of being called a "streamdog" or "water hound" by Ironbeak's mooks and Queen Amballa being called "Miss Brasil 2002" in season 3), the Sparrows (including Warbeak) being turned into the Redwall equivalents of the G1 Junkions, the Product Promotion Parade bits in Season 2 being lampshaded (including Mangiz saying "I am Mangiz the Seer, General Ironbeak's right hand man, and the rest of our forces are sold separately with gear, from Latikuu!"), the Gawtrybe singing Zeca Afonso songs instead of chanting "Fight, fight, fight", and Tramun Clogg singing death metal. There are also added references to Brazilian history, geography, culture and pop culture. ** Funnily enough, both the Brazilian Portuguese and Latin Spanish dubs were done by BVI Communications Inc. in Miami (the company who was one of the many Latin Spanish dubbing studios for South Park), and while the Latin Spanish dub is more faithful, the Brazilian dub is more comedic. Category:Tropes